Vernacular variation in the English-speaking mass media

English is the first language in the history of the humankind that has expanded on a truly global scale (De Swaan 2001). One important consequence of this sociohistorical event is that three out of four English users have acquired it as an additional language ( Jenkins 2015). Moreover, English is not just the language of business, academia and a natural linguistic choice in contexts where speakers do not speak or understand the la nguage of the other group. Perhaps, more importantly, English has been increasingly developing into a globally available linguistic resource allowing for the propagation of the electronic mass media contents (games, films and series, social media and chats). This has become perhaps even more evident in the circumstances of social isolation underpinning the dynamics of the current COVID crisis. Adolescents, in particular, have been reported to be avid, if vulnerable, consumers of mass media products (Steinberg 2017). Against this backdrop, this FWF project sets out to explore the patterns of mass media use by secondary school students, aged 14 to 18, from 13 schools in the province of Vorarlberg, Austria. In so doing, it also investigates the patterns of sociolinguistic variation in the mass media products, such as streaming series, most frequently consumed by adolescents in English. This is important as it allows us to explore the nature of sociolinguistic inputs accompanying acquisition of a globally available foreign language English. In addition, this procedure will also inform our understanding about the extent to which media language is representative of the talk permeating day-to-day interactions of real people. It is to this hotly debated, if somewhat underresearched, sociolinguistic issue (Sayers 2014) that the current project intends to contribute. In the first step, the project will carry out a survey tapping into Vorarlberg teenagers use of mass media products. Relying on these results, we will then ascertain the two most favourite streaming series among the targeted population and perform the sociolinguistic analyses of two vernacular features. The analyses will draw on the variationist methodology (Labov 1971; Tagliamonte 2012), a quantitative method ensuring the direct comparability and replicability of sociolinguistic data. The project is carried out in close cooperation with the Education Board of Vorarlberg. References / Bibliographie De Swaan, Abram. 2001. Words of the World. Cambridge [etc.]: Polity. Jenkins, Jennifer. 2015. Global Englishes. A Resource Book for Students. London and New York: Routledge. Labov, William. 1971. Some principles of linguistic methodology. Language in Society 1(1): 97-120. Sayers, Dave. 2014. The mediated innovation model: A framework for researching media influence in language change (Focus article). Journal of Sociolinguistics 18(2). 185212. Steinberg, Laurence. 2017. Adolescents. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. Tagliamonte, Sali A. 2012. Variationist Sociolinguistics. Change, Observation, Interpretation. Malden [etc.] Wiley-Blackwell.

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